* * *
Lola kneelson the floor next to me and in front of the coffee table. She sets several large cards with colorful images on the table and a smaller deck of cards next to those. Next, she produces a small Ziploc bag full of dried beans. “Uh,” I say. “Why do you need beans?”
“It’s what we use to check off the boxes.”
This game is weird. What have I gotten myself into?
“Okay, so you select one of the large cards. They’re all different, and you should get the one that draws you in.”
“Okay.” I peruse the cards. I don’t understand most of the labels on each image, but I settle for one that includes the image of a fish, a spider web, a skull, a man holding a guitar, a hand, and I understand La Rosa means rose, written under the image of the red rose. “This one,” I say.
She nods, then takes the stack in front of her to study them carefully. She fans them out on the coffee table and runs her fingers over them with eyes closed.
I chuckle. “What on earth are you doing, Lola?”
Her eyes fly open, and she smirks at me. “It has to speak to me, Karl,” she says, sounding annoyed, as if it were the most obvious thing ever.
“Right.” Dolores Beltran can be so amusing.
She finally settles on one, then sets a hand full of beans next to my card and another next to hers.
“Okay, here’s how this works. We’ll take turns drawing from the deck of the smaller cards and flipping the card over so we both can see it. If your game card contains an image that matches the card we just pulled from the deck, you place a bean over that image on your game card. Just like bingo, but with images.”
“Easy enough,” I say.
There’s a grin on her face when she speaks again. “When you place the bean on the image, the other person removes an article of clothing.”
My eyes snap up to her face. “What the fuck?”
“It’s strip bingo,” Lola says calmly.
I stand up and pace the living room. “I’m not playing fucking strip bingo with you, Lola.”
“Karl—”
“I told you we are not having sex soon. You need time—”
“Who said anything about sex?” she asks me, much too calm from her spot on the floor. “It’s just a game, Karl. Don’t be so uptight.”
“No. I’m not stripping.”
“You shook on it.”
I stop in my tracks and I gape at her. “What?”
“You promised you’d follow the rules of the game—”
“I didn’t know it was fucking strip bingo!” I roar.
Lola giggles. Oh, I’m glad she finds this amusing.
“No fucking way,” I say again.
Her eyes narrow. “I didn’t think you wouldn’t be a man of your word.”
“What? I am a man of my word!”
“Then play. You said you’d follow all the rules, and we shook on the terms.”